Blast from the Past No.61: Eric Djemba-Djemba

Reviving the Premier League players you forgot (or tried to forget) existed…

Imagine buying a cute little kitten and spending all weekend playing with it, and then on Monday you go to work and when you get home the tiny fluffball has soiled your carpet, ripped down your curtains and eaten all your Alpen. A terrible fury rises within you as you curse your decision to buy a kitten, and you chase it around the living room with a baseball bat. But as soon as you catch the creature, it looks up at you with its cute little furry face and all you can do is give it a big cuddle and tell it how much you love it. That’s what it’s like to sign Eric Djemba-Djemba.

Best known for being one of the worst signings, if not the worst signing, in the storied Premier League history of Manchester United, the midfielder is paradoxically one of football’s great living legends – loved almost everywhere he has been, and many places he hasn’t been.

His eventful career has been played out to an intoxicating soundtrack of comedy and chaos. There has been success, and more commonly failure, but the spirit of this Cameroonian lion has proved literally indomitable.

To understand the enduring appeal of Djemba-Djemba – aka the Djemba twins, Djemba squared, the amazing Djemba brothers, “so good they named him twice” or Jim Pakistan (as he was once infamously labelled in an unfortunate Babelfish translation of a Chinese article about him signing for United) – we have to trace the story back to the start of his professional life.

The ninth born of 10 siblings growing up in Douala, Djemba-Djemba was spotted playing at the city’s Kadji Sports Academy by scouts from Ligue 1 side Nantes, who took him to France to make his fortune.

He made an immediate impact on the team’s former manager Guy Hillion, who recalled, “Djemba-Djemba was touching. He used to get ecstatic about everything. One of the first things he said when he arrived was: ‘I don’t understand this. In France, I see money coming out of the walls.’ He was talking about cash machines.”

As adorable as this wide-eyed fascination with the world was, it contrasted starkly with Djemba-Djemba’s tough-tackling playing style which, in his younger days, saw him compared to Patrick Vieira (along with every other vaguely promising defensive midfielder of African descent). A few times in the 2002/03 season, Alex Ferguson came along to watch – and he liked what he saw.

In 2003, United shelled out a modest £3.5m for the 22-year-old who had shone in that summer’s Confederations Cup, having also helped his country win the African Cup of Nations a year earlier.

“The fans may not have heard of me, but the one thing I will promise is that I will sweat blood for the club,” he declared on arrival.

He made his debut as a 61st-minute substitute in the Community Shield against Arsenal and, weirdly enough, he was brilliant.

“A lot of fans were very excited about Djemba-Djemba’s first performance – he really put himself about and showed great promise. I sometimes wonder now if I actually dreamed that match,” said Man Utd fan Kuldip Singh.

Eric made his league debut the following weekend (alongside a fellow new signing named Cristiano Ronaldo) in a 4-0 win against Bolton Wanderers, with some tipping him as a long-term successor to ageing club captain Roy Keane.

For a man who got worked up by the concept of cash machines, in hindsight it’s perhaps little surprise that the high-rolling life of Premier League footballer became a bit too much excitement to handle.

The highlight of Djemba-Djemba’s early United career was an extra-time winning goal against fierce rivals Leeds United in the league cup – an unorthodox half-volley which to this day is unclear whether he mishit.

Djemba-Djemba once recalled in his uniquely endearing way, “I still have a picture in my head from when I go into the dressing room after the (Leeds) game. There was Alex Ferguson. He was smiling. A big smile, with his glasses on. He was so happy.”

With his glasses on.

Perhaps the reason Eric remembers this moment so clearly is that it was possibly the only time he made Ferguson truly happy.

He failed to fulfil on that early promise for the remainder of the season. Today he is described by one Red Devils fans on the Red Cafe forum as “comfortably the worst player to have played for us in the last 15 years”.

But is this the Djemba-Djemba legend getting in the way of reality? Another post on the same forum, dated 25 August 2004, reveals that Djemba-Djemba actually started his second season in imperious form.

“He was class again. That’s four out of four games he’s been impressive. He completely controlled the midfield,” writes one fan, to the agreement of several others.

It didn’t last, clearly. By January, he was offloaded to Aston Villa for £1.5m.

All you really need to know about Djemba-Djemba’s two-year spell at Villa Park is that it was significantly less successful that his stint at Old Trafford, if you can imagine such a thing.

“I remember Ferguson admitting Djemba-Djemba was one of his worst signings. I suspect he also thinks he was one of his best sales,” commented one Villa supporter on the Heroes and Villains forum.

Djemba-Djemba made just four league starts in his Villa career, but he was in an even more parlous state off the field. In fact, it’s just possible he may have single-handedly caused the 2008 global economic crash.

“Eric is on a different planet. He simply has no notion of money,” he agent once said, revealing that while at Villa the midfielder had 10 4×4 cars, 30 different bank accounts and spent his entire £75,000-a-month salary on loan repayments.

This meant he had to live off performance bonuses – and few players accrued fewer performance bonuses than Eric Djemba-Djemba. Shortly after leaving Villa, he was officially declared bankrupt. He had lost everything.

It was a sorry end to his career in English football, but Djemba-Djemba was not the kind of dude to get down in the dumps. Instead, he did what any self-respecting bankrupt footballer would do and headed for Qatar.

One season in the Middle East helped him get his finances back on track, before he was snapped up by Danish side Odense, where he remains a hero. He was a contender for the Danish SuperLiga player of the season two years running, and once famously got an assist with his sock after the sole of one of his boots came off during a match against Esbjerg. Classic Eric.

Following spells at Hapoel Tel Aviv and Partizan Belgrade, he was back in Britain playing for St Mirren – and he’d lost none of his old magic.

On his debut against Dundee United, Djemba-Djemba made a mistake that gave away a goal before luckily escaping a red card for a studs-up challenge – and yet by the end of the match the fans were chanting his name while wearing flat caps in his honour (because he had enigmatically decided to wear a flat cap in his signing photo shoot – while advertising a sticker album). Once again, it was textbook Djemba.

He then went to play in India, followed by Indonesia, where he had a spell at Persebaya Surabaya that inspired the most uninspiring player skills showreel you will ever, ever see.

He subsequently moved to Persipa Padalarang, where his Wikipedia page indicates he belatedly found his scoring boots – smashing in 25 goals in 34 appearances, having previously found the net 11 times in his entire career. Whether this is reliable information or not, it sounds like exactly the kind of thing that would happen to Eric.

And he’s still going. Currently turning out for Swiss fifth division side FC Vallorbe-Ballaigues aged 35, Djemba-Djemba’s tumultuous love affair with the game that gave him everything – and took it all away, and gave it back again – continues.

Even at Old Trafford, where his name remains synonymous with the darkest phase of Fergie’s reign – when the Red Devils went three years without a title (what they’d give for that kind of run now) – one fan confessed, “I reckon Djemba-Djemba would get a great reception if he came back. A kind of ironic, sympathetic ovation.”

Because for all his flaws, whether as a player or as a human being, it’s impossible to feel any malice towards Eric Djemba-Djemba. He is simply a nice, funny man who we all want to hug.

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